BenQ EW2730 - Experiences and discussion

Stab

Stab

Stab

Associate
Joined
11 Feb 2012
Posts
22
I am considering buying the BenQ EW2730. I have some questions to people with more knowledge or experience with this screen.

-I am worried that it might show ghosting and trailing in games because of the mediocre response time and the 13 ms input lag. Does anyone have experience with this monitor?
And is there a 'modus' on the monitor that eliminates the input lag, like a 'gaming mode' or something?

-Also, is there a difference with the EW2730v?

-This is a new generation VA screen, which is supposed to have the best contrast and black levels of all type of monitors. But how about colours and viewing angles? Currently I have a 6 bit+dithering E-IPS monitor. Will this (native 8 bit) BenQ be an upgrade in this regard?

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
the EW2730 and EW2730V are very similar and both use an AU Optronics AMVA panel. the differences come in some of the extra features as the V model has additional component input, PbP / PiP functions, and some of the enhancements for video modes (noise reduction etc). Apart from these extras, the panel being used is the same and so performance should be very comparable. if you go on BenQ.com you can use the comparison option to show both models and see where the slight differences are.

from my experience with the EW2730V, responsiveness was pretty poor sadly, as it is with a lot of modern cPVA and AMVA panel types. Input lag was also ~33ms average using a reliable testing method. where id the 13ms figure come from out of interest? there aren't any "through modes" or anything on that model to reduce input lag i'm afraid. having said that, there's a possibility that without some of the video enhancements they are perhaps using different signal processing and so there MAY be a lower lag on the EW2730 as opposed to the EW2730V. It's a possibility but to be honest i doubt it makes much different and suspect internal electronics and processing are largely the same (note: tests of the EW2730W were conducted without those options enabled anyway)

contrast and black depth is certainly a strong point of modern VA panels. the EW2730V offered a CR of ~2000:1 which was excellent, although i've seen some panels reach ~3000:1 as well! certainly a big step up from IPS in that regard which can manage about 900 - 1000:1 at the best of times!

Viewing angles are more restrictive than IPS matrices though, and the off-centre contrast shift is an "issue" with VA which you don't have on IPS. they are still pretty reasonable though

i doubt you'd notice any real life difference in practice between a decent 6-bit +FRC IPS panel and a full 8-bit AMVA panel to be honest. you'd really need to know what to look for and have the type of uses which might show it

hope that helps :)
 
Thanks for your reply Baddass!

The input lag really puts me off, as I like to play BF3 and get a good score :P

Do you notice the trailing / ghosting? How do you 'perceive' input lag actually?

I was not sure about the 13 ms input lag, it was just a number I remembered from a review. Thought it was arround that number, but apparently it is much higher.

Shame, cause it looks like a very nice monitor indeed. Could you eleborate the response time / input lag a little more and how and when its noticeable?

Thanks!
 
stab its looks as if your looking for the same monitor as myself, a 27" 10809 with nice picture and good response times, something mid range not too cheap or too expensive, looking at lot of reviews i think i need somesort of cross between the benq 2730v and iiyama ProLite E2773HDS
 
old gamer said:
stab its looks as if your looking for the same monitor as myself, a 27" 10809 with nice picture and good response times, something mid range not too cheap or too expensive, looking at lot of reviews i think i need somesort of cross between the benq 2730v and iiyama ProLite E2773HDS
Click to expand...

Yea but it doesnt seem to exist :)
 
Stab said:
Thanks for your reply Baddass!

The input lag really puts me off, as I like to play BF3 and get a good score :P

Do you notice the trailing / ghosting? How do you 'perceive' input lag actually?
Click to expand...

well i would say that the trailing and motion blur is actually quite high on that panel sadly, and certainly not as fast as modern IPS or TN Film panels. It might be fine for you, just depends what you're moving from to this new screen i suppose and how sensitive you are to things like this. from an input lag point of view, 33ms is about 2 frames of lag which is quite high. again no issue in normal use or for slower gamers, but in FPS it might well be a distraction.
 
Baddass said:
well i would say that the trailing and motion blur is actually quite high on that panel sadly, and certainly not as fast as modern IPS or TN Film panels. It might be fine for you, just depends what you're moving from to this new screen i suppose and how sensitive you are to things like this. from an input lag point of view, 33ms is about 2 frames of lag which is quite high. again no issue in normal use or for slower gamers, but in FPS it might well be a distraction.
Click to expand...

Thanks again!

At the moment I have an LG E2370v and it has no input lag and 6 ms response time. I see no ghosting while playing FPS.

From your experience, I think I can conclude that the BenQ is not an option for me since I am paying attention to details like that.

Bummer, because I cant seem to find any monitor that fits my criteria :)

Might stick with the LG for a while then...
 
i've not tested the E2370v in particular but i have tested the LG IPS231P which is also a 23" e-IPS panel rated by LG with a 5ms G2G response time. actually in practice i found that it was not as responsive as the spec might lead you to believe, and not as responsive as some other competing IPS models in the same size. it looked like LG had applied a weak overdrive circuit or it was poorly set up.

anyway, my point is that actually the EW2730V isn't that far behind the LG IPS panels like that in some cases, but it will be slower across some transitions. you may notice a small difference in response times as a result

have you thought about other 27" models like the HP ZR2740w, Samsung S27A850D, Dell U2711 etc? or the Hazro monitors which are very nicely priced!
 
Baddass said:
i've not tested the E2370v in particular but i have tested the LG IPS231P which is also a 23" e-IPS panel rated by LG with a 5ms G2G response time. actually in practice i found that it was not as responsive as the spec might lead you to believe, and not as responsive as some other competing IPS models in the same size. it looked like LG had applied a weak overdrive circuit or it was poorly set up.

anyway, my point is that actually the EW2730V isn't that far behind the LG IPS panels like that in some cases, but it will be slower across some transitions. you may notice a small difference in response times as a result

have you thought about other 27" models like the HP ZR2740w, Samsung S27A850D, Dell U2711 etc? or the Hazro monitors which are very nicely priced!
Click to expand...

I paid 20 euro more for the LG E2370v because it has a 'thru mode' which eliminates the input lag... So probably it is still 'faster' than the IPS231p...

About the other monitors... I was set on a Hazro C version but I am a bit put off by the huge 1440p resolution.
For everything besides gaming it is great, but my HD 6870 will not be able to run BF3 smoothly on native resolution.
I have heard bad things about 'down scaling' it to 1080p on those screens... I would really like to see screenshots showing the difference.

I cannot afford a new monitor and a new videocard, that's why I was opting for a 27 inch 1080p non TN monitor which has no ghosting and nice colours. Apparently, there arent any :(
 
Last edited:
fair enough. the 'Thru mode' might well help reduce the input lag a little, although i suspect the pixel responsiveness is still largely similar to the IPS231P and other current 5ms G2G rated LG models. The Hazro HZ27W monitors are very nice. The C model doesnt feature a scaler so there is no hardware aspect ratio control. there's no issue with it interpolating and scaling the input resolution to full screen, but the image would always be scaled to fill the screen completely. so you need to think about the aspect ratio of the source as anything other than 16:9 (the native aspect of the HZ27WC) would be stretched in one way or another.

there is the option to control the aspect ratio via the graphics card though which could get round that if needed. so you wouldnt have to run the game at the full res anyway. may still be an option.

The HZ27WD (used to be the A model) does offer hardware aspect ratio control and a scaler so might be another option as well if you want to be able to control the aspect ratio properly from the screen instead of the graphics card.
 
The hazro,dell and 120hz 27 inchers are all very nice but expensive if the op is thinking along the same line as me then would realy like to know what is the best mid range 27" monitor to go for
 
well choices are very limited if you dont want a TN Film panel. i think in summary i would say:


TN Film - plenty of standard 60Hz models available. all should offer decent gaming performance and responsiveness, but will be resictive in areas like viewing angles

IPS - the Hazro models are certainly the most cost effective of the offerings and sometimes when on special offer they are even more of a bargain. IPS panels in this size offer the higher 2560 x 1440 resolution and will offer the all round performance of IPS as you might hope. some of the more expensive models offer higher end features but at an additional cost of course.

PLS - Only the Samsung models available but at a high cost, comparable to the higher cost IPS models like the Dell U2711

PVA - there arent really any modern Samsung PVA panels in this size and older models are slow in terms of responsiveness and lacking all the modern features and connections

AMVA -probably your only option if you dont want a TN Film model, but want a lower cost mid range screen. you would have to live with some of the sacrifices as explained above though including slower responsiveness (comparable to IPS and TN Film offerings), slightly resictive viewing angles (compared with IPS) etc. so the BenQ models are probably your only possible choice if you dont want a TN Film model and the Hazro models are too expensive
 
dont have a problem with tn as longs as the image quality for games is quite good, also would threre be much difference in picture quality between led and lcd, the real thing im trying to avoid is washed out colours and games that are dark being to dark if that makes sense
 
well TN Film is most restrictive in terms of viewing angles when compared with other technologies. it is inherently responsive so from a gaming point of view should perform as well if not better than any fast IPS panel, and certainly better than AMVA offerings. just look for a model with a quoted "G2G" response time as that will indicate the use of overdrive which is very useful in improving responsiveness. the models without overdrive are usually quoted with a 5ms response time which might sound fast (and is) but wont be as responsive in practice as a model with overdrive applied.


LED is just a form of backlighting technology and is used behind an LCD / TFT display (LCD and TFT are interchangeable terms for the same thing). LED is just used as a backlight tech nowadays instead of traditional CCFL backlights. the colour gamut is still basically the same (about sRGB colour coverage) so no differences there either. just used now for power and environmental implications mostly.
 
i think my problem is i dont know what i want, was looking for something in the £300 mark, might hold off untill i can afford a hazro, ive been put off by quality issues but if it comes with 3 year warranty shouldnt be a problem i guess
 
if you are looking at 1920 x 1080 res monitors have you also thought about 23 - 24" sized monitors using IPS panels?
 
Baddass said:
.

The HZ27WD (used to be the A model) does offer hardware aspect ratio control and a scaler so might be another option as well if you want to be able to control the aspect ratio properly from the screen instead of the graphics card.
Click to expand...

What is the advantage over scaling of the GPU?

Will there be a noticable difference when playing BF3 at 1080p on the Hazro's C and D?

Also, doesnt the D version also adds input lag because of the scalers? (and other hardware)

Which one would be better for gaming?
 
Stab said:
What is the advantage over scaling of the GPU?

Will there be a noticable difference when playing BF3 at 1080p on the Hazro's C and D?

Also, doesnt the D version also adds input lag because of the scalers? (and other hardware)

Which one would be better for gaming?
Click to expand...

well if the aspect ratio control is done at the hardware level you don't have to worry about whether the graphics card and drivers will support it at a software level, and whether the game perhaps causes any issues with scaling via the graphics card. it is also vital to be able to control the aspect ratio at the hardware level when connecting external devices like Blu-ray players and games consoles as otherwise you could be left with neither device being able to control the aspect properly.

The Hazro D version does offer those scalers and so has a slightly higher input lag as a result. have a look at this review as it will explain more and hopefully help (A model is now D model)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom